Sunday, June 7, 2015

Prisoners first began circulating the photocopied
manifesto more than six months ago inside Sing Sing Correctional Facility. “WAKE
UP!!!” a longtime Sing Sing inmate urged his fellow prisoners. “As you probably
have been noticing, since . . . [George] Pataki became governor in January
1995, it has become harder and harder, month after month, and year after year
to be released on parole in New York State.” The anonymous author denounced
Pataki’s prison policies and concluded by calling for a work stoppage, in which
inmates would refuse to cook, mop, or perform any of their other jobs.

A work strike by prisoners may not sound like a major
event, but inside prison any large-scale demonstration of inmate solidarity
could lead to violence. Nobody knows how many prisoners or which of the state’s
70 prisons may participate in a work stoppage, nor what its impact might be.
Inmates say the protest will begin January 1, but prison officials are already
taking steps to quash it by rooting out ringleaders. Inmates caught with copies
of the “WAKE UP!!!” manifesto have been sent to solitary confinement for up to
three years.

The chief complaint of the “WAKE UP!!!” manifesto—and
many New York prisoners—involves changes in the state’s parole policies. Pataki
eliminated parole for repeat felons in 1995, then ended it for all violent
felons in 1998. While these laws are not retroactive, and therefore affect only
new inmates, long-term prisoners insist the state’s 19-member parole board has
also made it much tougher for them to win release, especially if they were
convicted of a violent crime.

Fifty-four percent of inmates convicted of violent
crimes got released after their first trip before the parole board in fiscal
year 1991-92. Six years later, that number had dropped to 33 percent. Longtime
prisoners who thought they had a good shot at going home instead found
themselves joining the “deuce club,” the inmates’ moniker for those who are
denied parole and so must wait two years until their next chance to go before
the board.

Pataki insists his tougher parole policy is a smart
crime-fighting strategy. “Early parole release is not a right,” says Caroline
Quartararo, a spokesperson for the governor. “It’s a privilege. The decision to
keep violent felons behind bars longer is a good thing for anyone who is a
law-abiding citizen on the streets of New York.”

For New York’s prisoners, the parole issue tops a
long list of grievances. “The feeling is that people died at Attica for what we
had, for the so-called privileges we’re losing,” says Jason Nicholas, a
29-year-old prisoner at Wallkill Correctional Facility.

The 1971 inmate uprising at Attica prison focused
public attention on the inhumane treatment and living conditions of New York’s
inmates, and it led to widespread reforms. Now, Nicholas says, “The state is
chipping away at that standard of living. First it was [the elimination of]
work release [for violent offenders], then college programs, and now parole.
Politicians don’t want to hear our complaints, so that leaves very little
avenues open for us to gain political power, to try to improve things or at
least to arrest this slide.”

The “WAKE UP!!!” manifesto features a grab bag of
prisoner demands: improved job training, better drug treatment programs, more
academics, reform of the state’s stiff penalties for drug offenders. The
manifesto’s author also charges that inmates are kept in prison longer because
they are a source of cheap labor.

“Why should we be the raw materials in the DOCS
[Department of Correctional Services] prison industrial corporation which only
serves the interests of politicians to be elected into office, and to provide
jobs for rural Northern New Yorkers?” the manifesto states. “Why should we work
to maintain the prisons as porters, cooks, plumbers, masons, welders, tailors,
roofers, painters . . . or in any capacity necessary to keep DOCS prison
corporation functioning properly?”

The manifesto insists that there is no longer much
for prisoners to gain by performing sub-minimum wage work, or trying to
cooperate with the system in any other way. “Right now it does not make a
difference if [we] . . . work hard to maintain DOCS, or if we behave,” it
states. “We are not released at our minimum [sentences].”

The “WAKE UP!!!” manifesto does not mention the
recent scandal engulfing the state’s parole board, but prisoners cite it as
another reason they are angry. For more than two years, a federal grand jury
has been investigating accusations of a pay-for-parole scheme in which the
parole board gave favorable treatment to the relatives of Pataki campaign
contributors. So far, a former state parole commissioner has been sentenced to
two years in prison for lying. And last week, a fundraiser was charged with
soliciting more than $36,000 from the parents of three prisoners by promising
early parole.

Inside the state’s prisons, inmates are using a range
of tactics to express their frustraton and broadcast their solidarity. In the
mess hall at Sing Sing, inmates refuse to talk, and wear their state-issued
uniform—dark green cotton pants and shirts—rather than their own clothes, so
they all look alike.

Last summer, prisoners at Otisville Correctional
Facility took the unusual step of all showing up at the mess hall for
breakfast—a meal they often skip—to register their displeasure and keep the
officers extra busy. And at some facilities, inmates are now emptying their
prison bank accounts and stockpiling food in their cells to prepare for the
possibility that they could be locked in their cells for a long stretch of time
come the new year.

Though these protest tactics are peaceful, some
prisoners have already resorted to violence to ensure the cooperation of fellow
inmates. When several Sing Sing inmates refused to wear their “greens”—the state-issued
uniforms—in the mess hall, their cells were torched. Some fearful prisoners
have asked officials to move them into “protective custody” cells away from the
general population.

Wearing greens and staying silent in the mess hall
are familiar protest tactics, though they are fairly rare and, to prison
officials, have ominous overtones. “In the week before the Attica uprising,
there was a silent protest in the mess hall that should have been a signal to
the administration that there was some serious unrest,” says Eddie Ellis, who
was imprisoned at Attica during the infamous inmate revolt that left 39 people
dead.

The mess hall is often a prison’s noisiest area. But “when
there’s 1000 guys eating in a mess hall and no one is talking, the silence is deafening,”
Ellis says. “If I were a prison guard, I would know there’s a serious problem
going on there.”

Sing Sing is not the only hotbed of prisoner
organizing. At Green Haven Correctional Facility, another maximum-security
prison, some inmates were discussing possible protests last December, before
the “WAKE UP!!!” manifesto surfaced. Officials recently shipped more than 40
prisoners from Green Haven to other facilities around the state, a favorite
method for derailing organizing efforts and sending a message to other inmates.

Meanwhile, inside Green Haven, officials discovered
two plastic containers of gunpowder on November 10. In early December, they
found a bomb inside Auburn Correctional Facility, and officials last week
uncovered a large amount of sulfur at Great Meadow Correctional Facility,
according to Dennis Fitzpatrick, spokesperson for the state prison guards’
union. There is no evidence tying these incidents to a possible work stoppage,
but they have fueled fears.

“When you find weapons and explosive devices, you can
only assume that if the non-violent portion [of the protest] is not successful,
then it may result in something more drastic,” says the guard union’s
Fitzpatrick. “We’re taking very seriously the possibility of a potential
problem.” James Flateau, the spokesperson for the Department of Correctional
Services, did not return several calls for comment.

At prisons across the state, officials have been
pumping inmate snitches for information. They have searched the computers used
by prisoner organizations. And in some facilities, they have also confiscated
copies of news stories mentioning a possible protest.

Last week, the Legal Aid Society in New York City
received a documented complaint from a prisoner caught distributing the “WAKE
UP!!!” manifesto. Prison officials punished the inmate by sending him to
solitary confinement for three years, where he will spend 23 hours a day in his
cell.

Just a few years ago, an inmate had to assault a
staff member or fellow prisoner in order to earn a punishment of three years in
solitary confinement. John Boston, director of the Prisoners’ Rights Project at
the Legal Aid Society, points out that, of the inmates disciplined in 1995 for
breaking prison rules, officials only sent .4 percent to solitary confinement
for longer than two years. About the prospect of a prisoner locked all day in
his cell for three years, Boston says, “There is a substantial potential of
pretty serious psychological damage from isolation for that period of time.”

The possibility of an inmate work stoppage has put
prisoners’ rights groups in a decidedly uncomfortable position. Many share the
same views as the writer of the “WAKE UP!!!” manifesto, but do not support an
inmate strike.

Daniel Greenberg, executive director of the Legal Aid
Society, attempted to head off any criticism by publishing a letter December 1
in the Albany Times-Union stating his organization’s opposition to the
work stoppage. “The Legal Aid Society is trying to discourage it by telling
inmates who contact us that we don’t support it and that there are negative
consequences to any kind of organized actions by prisoners because it’s
illegal,” says Claudette Spencer, a staff attorney. “I don’t think any good
will come of it. The work has to come from the outside, and those efforts are
now being done in an organized fashion.”

Last month, Spencer held a meeting at the Legal Aid
Society about parole, which drew 300 inmates’ relatives, lawyers, and
activists—a far larger crowd than most attendees had expected. The newly
created Coalition for Parole Restoration has held a few meetings around the
state and is now crafting a long-term strategy. Meanwhile, Legal Aid attorneys
are considering filing a lawsuit addressing parole. About plans for a possible
work stoppage, Spencer says, “It just happened to come around at the same time.”

Meanwhile, inside the prisons, guards are not looking
forward to punching in for work on January 1. “A nonviolent protest can go sour
in a heartbeat,” says an officer at a maximum-security prison, who asked not to
be identified. “All it takes is a couple knuckleheads before something that’s
supposed to be nonviolent becomes violent.” To quell any unrest and solve
possible Y2K problems, prison officials will have extra officers on duty when
the new year starts.

It is impossible to know exactly what the impact of a
prisoner strike might be. A sizable portion of New York’s 70,000 state
prisoners hold jobs. For an average of $1.05 a day, inmates perform the daily
chores that keep the prisons running—washing clothes and sheets, scooping food
onto plates, sweeping the corridors. And 3500 inmates work in various
industries, including grinding lenses for eyeglasses, assembling furniture, and
sewing guards’ uniforms.

“If it’s just one prison—let’s say Sing Sing closes
down January 1—then the effect will be minimal,” says Ellis, a former Black
Panther who spent 23 years in prison and now heads the Criminal Justice Center,
a Harlem-based prisoner advocacy group. “If the demonstrations exceed 10 prisons—let’s
say 20 prisons—we’re looking at some real problems because [prison officials’]
traditional way of dealing with[a protest]—identifying and segregating the
leaders—would be a lot more difficult to do.”

As Pataki and state legislators have made life tougher
for prisoners, it is the guards who have had to enforce their policies. A
carrot-and-stick strategy had long prevailed, and the promise of parole was a
powerful management tool for maintaining peace inside the state’s prisons.

“A lot of guys have been keeping a very clean record
for 20, 25 years on the chance of possibly someday getting out to see their
family and see the world one more time,” says an upstate correction officer,
who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Now that that light has been put out,
it’s pretty dark. If there is nothing left for an inmate to lose, there is
nothing to take away from him.”

Prisoners with nothing to lose, who have lost all
hope, can be dangerous. It hardly seems to matter that their anger is not
directed at the men and women in uniform who will show up for work on January
1. While charges of brutal guards and dismal conditions sparked the Attica
uprising nearly 30 years ago, this time the target of inmates’ frustration is
outside the prison walls. “It’s not against the officers or the administration,”
explains an inmate at a maximum-security prison, who asked not to be named for
fear of retaliation. “It’s against the parole board and the governor. They have
to understand we’re not dollar signs.”